Office 2007’s ‘ribbon UI’, now optimistically renamed ‘Office Fluent User Interface’, was an act of strange corporate madness by Microsoft.

This may seem an unfair statement, since it looks like a genuine attempt to make the application easier to learn for the novice. However, it broke the rules, and signaled that Microsoft no longer cared about maintaining a consistency in the look and feel of all Windows applications.

History tells us that it is a bad idea to change the interface of an established word-processing application. A similar act of folly caused the demise of Wordstar, for example. Word’s menus and shortcuts had been learned by its users for eighteen years, so forcing them to adopt a different metaphor, without the choice of the ‘classic view’, seems reckless.  At least we could switch off the ridiculous animated paper-clip (TFC), their previous attempt to dumb down their flagship applications. However, unless you buy one of the many applications that are designed to put back the classic menus, you are condemned to haunt the Ribbon UI (TFR), looking for that elusive Word Count menu item.

Simple-Talk uses Microsoft Word as the de-facto standard for article submission, and most authors I’ve spoken to are united in their dislike of the new ribbon UI. It may help the novice, but those of us who have the old menu tattooed into their cerebellums are disinclined to thank Microsoft for suddenly changing all the rules.

Application developers who are creating Windows applications have certain constraints to which they have to work. This has been a consensus amongst application providers since Xerox developed the ‘Windows’ computer in 1981. We work to strict style guides and deviate only when necessary; this  is one of the foundations of good user-interface design.. Leaving to one side the obvious things such as context popup menus or resizing, Windows applications must have a menu, and the menu layout and structure has to adhere to standards. It also has to have keyboard shortcuts so that you can use it without a mouse.

There are good reasons for all this: if all Windows applications work the same way, then the end user can comfortably use several applications at once, and there is less need for retraining. This is in everybody’s interests, because the cost of retraining in the corporate setting is one of the highest costs in rolling out an application.

If there is to be anarchy over even the simplest elements of consistency in the user interface, then there is little point in having Microsoft Windows. Following the lead of Office 2007, we can all adopt our own user interfaces, without worrying too much about the cognitive dissonance in the end user. Or we can all use Adobe Air instead.

Nobody objects to innovation: we need to select the good new ideas in user interface design and use them. However, what I and many other do object to is having the established UI standards torn up at the drop of a hat, and the ‘new ideas’ forced on us without the option of being able to turn them off. To do that is to abuse your monopoly.

Am I being unkind to Microsoft about this? Should we now rewrite all our applications to make them work the same way as TFR (the ‘fluent’ Ribbon)? Does anyone know where Word Count has got to? What is the point of  adhering to standards if the industry leader doesn’t want to conform to them? Please let us know: The best comment on the blog will win a $50 amazon voucher, of course.

Cheers,

Tony.